The assault on the Constitution

[Horse with no Name]

I would surmise to say that the present outward assault on the Constitution by the fringe states was not by accident and would love to know who financed them. I don't believe there has ever been such blatant bullying of the national government by the state governments since the Civil War.
These radical zealots are FORCING Obama to follow their agenda by enacting these draconian laws (Oklahoma and Arizona for starters)that the US Justice Department will have to ultimately end up untangling.
IMHO these aren't isolated incidents. The battle lines are being drawn. We are headed for a showdown.
Sometimes I really hate living here anymore.:(

[Dappleganger]

1. Look at the author of the bills.

Then follow the money.

[William Z. Foster]

2. maybe

But what Homeland Security has been doing since the election, and what the Democrats in Congress are proposing, is no better and in many ways worse.

The battle lines are being drawn, but I am not so sure they are being drawn along partisan lines. When we try to out-Republican the Republicans - "look, we can be tough on terrorists and immigrants too!!" - the right wingers are emboldened, and they ultimately win. The right wingers were never concerned about immigration - that is all a smokescreen for racism. But the Democrats have no taken it seriously, just as they did the right wing fear bullshit about terrorism and about "our failing schools" and on and on - "OMG!! There really is a problem, and now we will solve it!" The Republicans were just saying that crap to get elected, they weren't serious about it. Leave it to the Democrats to believe it and go about enacting the damned right wing program. So now here we are, bailing out Wall Street, following the Bush doctrine on the war on terror, pursuing the illegal wars, caving to the health care industry and insurance companies and calling that "health care reform," going after the immigrants with a vengeance that the Republican administration never did - "but we are going after the employers, too, so it is OK!!" - privatizing schools and busting unions.

The public rejected that right wing agenda in the last two elections, and that is why we got Democrats into office. They weren't elected to do a better job of managing and enacting the right wing agenda.

[grasswire]

5. it's a dark day when Dems are willing to set aside civil liberties...

...in a mad rush in order to mollify the fringe element of the right wing.

Hell no! No, no!

Stop the insanity now. Vote in haste, repent at leisure.

[William Z. Foster]

6. here is what is strange

The Republicans will oppose us no matter what we do, so trying to write legislation that appeases them gains absolutely nothing in return.

Mollifying the right wing fringe doesn't get them on board, it strengthens and emboldens them and they will still be antagonistic.

From a practical political standpoint it is suicide playing "me too" on the Republican ideas. You cannot beat them at their game, and besides, the people rejected that game and voted for a new one.

[FrenchieCat]

9. Blame the Democrats, and leave the Republicans off the hook......that's your ticket

cause that's what you just did with that pitiful post.

There are problems that need to be solved,
and actually failing schools, a wacked immigration policy,
and repairing an economy that Republicans made come apart,
are some of the priorities.

As for bailing out Wall Street, if you were to open your eyes, you'd see
that Wall Street Reform is on the move, that Wall street got a whole lot
less than they figured, and have paid back more than they'd wished.
The fact that Bush and his administration made bailout the remedy
to their own madness, must have escaped you. as for an illegal war (there isn't more than one),
Obama was against it from the get-go, and is winding it down promptly.

As for caving, perhaps you would have done better, but perhaps not. The fact
that 30 million will be covered is not mentioned by you.....and this shit ain't done,
and you need to know that.

It is true that Democrats are not perfect,
but man, are they an improvement over those pieces of shit of Republicans
who aren't worth not a fucking thing.

I'm glad I know who the assholes are who did the real damage to this country,
and let me tell you, you are barking at the wrong tree.

[William Z. Foster]

13. you must be kidding

We can't support Democrats and be opposed to triangulation, pandering to the right wing and to racists, and letting conservative Dems hold the entire progressive program hostage?

By your logic the Abolitionists would have quit and gone home so as not to hurt the Whigs, who were after all much better than the alternative at the time - the pro-slavery Democrats. Organized labor would have had to stay silent so as not to hurt FDR. And the Civil Rights movement - I suppose once Democrats were in office, we all should have just stayed home and had positive thoughts about how wonderful the party was and how much better they were than the Republicans?

Very strange.

[KILL THE WISE ONE]

3. it is the hand of GOD motivating a demoralized left wing base

:sarcasm:

[EFerrari]

7. In swing states.

[nadinbrzezinski]

4. And the Whig, errr Republican Party is fighting itself

for the same damn thing it did in 1852, you know Slav... err cheap labor.

My irony meter is off the scale... but you are correct, and this is one thing I have said a few times 'round these parts.

[William Z. Foster]

8. interesting

I would say that the Republican party today is more similar to the Democratic party of the 1850s. The Republicans today are fighting for cheap labor just as the Democrats in the 1850's were fighting for slavery, with many if the same arguments and tactics, with racism and "divide and conquer" and fear campaigns. Today's Democratic party is strongly reminiscent of the Whig party in the 1850's - triangulating and trying to compromise with the other side in the hopes of avoiding a showdown, winning the "moderate middle" of the public over, and then making incremental changes to improve the slavery situation gradually.

[FrenchieCat]

10. Keep on shitting on the Dems.....like you have done

consistently throughout this thread....

but know this, Republicans stink like dead shit,
and I don't give a damn how much finger pointing
you do at the Democrats here or elsewhere,
it is the Republicans who are nothing more
than fucked up pieces of shit.

[Angry Dragon]

11. How come you were so gentle with them??

[nadinbrzezinski]

15. Pointing out that both parties are pro cheap labor is a modern reality

and pointing out that the dems of the 1850s were pretty much pro slavery is history... The modern Dem party hails from the Progressive movement starting in 1910 and ending pretty much with the death of FDR.

Over the last 30 years both parties have adopted a pro mercantilistic, pro cheap labor and against labor stances. Though the RNC has been far more smelly than the dems in that sense.

There is a reason why both are called NEO LIBERALS.

[nadinbrzezinski]

14. Actually the party of no was the whig party

that said, the dems were the party of business back then... why they defended private property... err slavery.

Modern republicans are closer to the party they hailed from than most folks understand, all the way to a regional party.

[William Z. Foster]

16. maybe

Not sure what you mean that the Whigs were "the party of no." They supported investment in public infrastructure, public education, protection for immigrants, and other things that the Democrats were saying "no" to.

The Democrats supported the plantation owners. That did not necessarily make them "the party of business." Businesses in the North favored tariffs, for example, and the Democrats opposed that.

The Republican party instituted Land Grant colleges and public education and public institutions in general, right up to Teddy building the national park system, all of which the modern Republican party has been dismantling. In what ways do you see the modern Republican party being close to the Lincoln-era Republican party?

[nadinbrzezinski]

18. Not the Republicans, the whigs

the republicans adopted lock stock and barrel the platform of the Workman's party that was formed in 1824. You forgot the ten hour day, and a few other things.

but the whigs were like today's republicans. Why my irony meter is going off the scale.

That said, the Democrats in 1850 oh to about 1890 when the Grangers and a few others finally managed to penetrate them, were no saints. they were against fighting the civil war.

The shift, the 180, the stitcharoo when the Republicans took the place of the Democrats, and the Democrats became the party of the people started oh around 1910... and fully ended by the Great Depression. Hell, the Progressive Movement had feet in both parties.

By the way... we might be seeing another historic switcharoo, where the current whig... party is about to die (The tea baggers have a lot in common with the extremes in the 1850s). And if we are in the midst of one of these... many in the base of both parties will be in for a surprise... and it will take about ten years to be more than just obvious. That said, we might also about to see a strange thing in US History, the death of a MAJOR US Party. If that happens, well then we will have a third party take it's place, since the small parties that have already been formed don't have the capacity.

Admitedly this is way too much inside baseball to the political history of the US... and I for one am happy as peach to find somebody else who shares a passion for this little known side of the story.

Oh and the grand old party of Lincoln has more in common with the Progressives in the 1910s, than it does with the current republicans. Modern day republicans are in my view more like the party the GOP replaced... ah irony.

[William Z. Foster]

19. I agree

I still say that the Democratic party today closely resembles the Whig party of the 1850's - the vacillation, triangulation, compromising, and failure to strongly confront the slave power. Similarly, Democrats today are failing to strongly confront the growing police state and corporate dominance over all things. The Whigs in the 1850's feared racist backlash, and so moderated their opposition to slavery and sought compromise, just as Democrats today fear right wing backlash and look for moderate potions and "work across the aisle" compromise. The Whigs saw their radicals - the Abolitionsists - as a liability, and spent as much time attacking them as they did the slave power. Similarly, Democrats spend as much or more time and energy attacking their radicals as they do attacking right wingers, and see their radicals - environmentalists, GLBTQ rights supporters, teacher unions and unions in general, women's rights groups - as a liability and a threat to their success and power.

However, I do not expect the Democratic party to disappear as the Whig party did, rather I think we are seeing a "switcheroo" taking place, as you say. The Democratic party may well be transfornming into the new conservative party, just as the Republican party did in the early 1900's. That would mean that the Republican party would probably disappear - 90% of their actual program having been adopted by the Democrats - and that some new left wing party would then emerge.

The survival of the Republican party is much more threatened by the Democrats replacing them that it ever was by the Democrats beating them. I think the party has gone for power over principle (not really a slam, since that is what politics is about and what almost all politicians do) and is well down the road now to replacing the Republican party. That leaves a vacuum on the left, of course. It was a risky move - gaining power by rallying the traditional Democratic party base and then moving dramatically to the right - but it was brilliantly executed and may well be successful. Take a handful of hot button "culture war" issues out of the mix, and the Democrats are now to the right of where the Republican party was 40 years ago.

I don't know what the Republicans can do now to get back in power - other than being an outlet for frustration by the public with the Democrats. There is not much room to the right of the Democrats to run on, and I don't think appeals to racism and bigotry are enough. The Democrats are so busy shoring up what they see as vulnerabilities - appearing weak on terror, soft on immigrants, favoring taxation, favoring public relief and welfare, being soft on "illegal immigrants" - that they may was well be Republicans now. The hyper=partisanship is a symptom that both parties are in trouble. Many people now will support or oppose the exact same policy based solely upon which party does it. For many Democrats, if Bush did it then it is bad, yet if Obama does the exact same thing, then it is good. For many Republicans, if Bush did it, then it was good, if Obama does the same exact thing, then it is bad.

[paulsby]

12. The arizona law is PHENOMENALLY bad law/bad policy

but i have seen no convincing argument that it is unconstitutional, although the preemption argument is a decent example of why it might be

[Libertyfirst]

17. You will pry my citizenship from my cold, dead heads. I will not let the

fundamentalist right take over MY country. There are always battles that have to be fought and I intend to leave my bones on a battlefield defending the constitution and my country.